There is a way in which you try to deal with press night as if
it was a normal show, because you don’t want it to change that much
from the way you have been doing it for the last two weeks. Plus
you should treat every show as a special night. But you can’t get
away from the fact that it is nerve wracking having the critics
there. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have an extra warm-up or an
extra collecting of my thoughts before I started. Perhaps I took an
extra 20 minutes to make sure my voice was in tip-top shape. We
didn’t have a company-wide response, it was a personal thing. Every
one reacts differently to press night. I try to keep a calm
exterior but inside it is sort of bubbling around.

I think the show went well. It was a very, very hot night, not
like today when it is pouring down with rain, which can be a bit
disheartening. The thing that Press Night always gives a
performance is an extra adrenaline buzz – I think everyone was
extra alive. It was a fast-paced, electric, show. Everyone felt
good afterwards and it certainly gave us all a buzz and we were
proud of it. We went away feeling we deserved our post show
drinks.

I do read what the critics write. A lot of actors say that they
don’t read reviews but my curiosity gets the better of me.
Sometimes it is not a good thing – if you read something that is
not very nice you take it to heart, but really you need to keep it
in perspective and think this is one person’s opinion, and you win
some and you lose some. The ones I’ve read so far have been fine.
Some of them have been quite mixed, but today we have had a
gorgeous one in the Observer. The Sunday Times liked it,
but the Observer loved it, and it was especially nice
about me. It must be a very funny job being a critic. You can tell
the good ones from the bad ones. Some people like to put in a
little funny jibe-ey comment which they think makes it quite an
amusing article to read, when actually that can be quite personal.
Others actually really know what they are talking about and really
understand this space, because the Globe is a really different
space and a lot of reviewers review it as if it was a typical
theatre. It isn’t, and you have to deal with things in a very
different way in this space. Othello in the Globe will be
a very different production from the Othello which will be
on in the Donmar Warehouse in the autumn. It will always be a
different type of performance and a good critic will understand
that and review it accordingly.

Desdemona

Last week I talked about some changes in Desdemona I had been
trying out. During the week I went from one extreme to the other
almost. I tried out quite a few different things and then towards
the last couple of shows before the press night I settled on the
right balance. Wilson [the Director] and I came to a good
compromise, so before press night it felt settled. It feels quite
different inside, but as I said last week it may not look very
different from outside. I think what the audience might see is I
play her as more of a woman rather than a girl. She does have girly
moments, but she goes on a hell of a journey in the play, she
really does have to grow up quickly. I think I injected more of the
poise of a knowing woman towards the end than I had in the earlier
previews.

These comments are the actor's thoughts or ideas about the
part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply
his/her own interpretations and frequently change as the rehearsal
process progresses.

Last week I said we were at the stage of tentatively setting
things in concrete. Things are still changing so I’m not sure how
much setting in concrete we have done. We have done a lot more of
running large chunks of the play, so we get a better idea of the
arc of the play, or the arc of the first or second half, which is
giving us more of a sense of where we are, at what place, and at
what time. This is helping us make firm decisions. A lot of it is
becoming much clearer, and the story is coming through more
strongly. We did a full run on Saturday, which was great to do. We
realised that the first half is pretty much exposition in terms of
setting the scene and setting the relationships. The second half
almost deals with itself – it is all movement and action; all
unravelling at its own speed. So our big challenge now is to get
more pace in the first bit – it is running at about two hours now.
There is so much information that you are torn between wanting to
keep the pace up, and respecting the language. It isn’t the sort of
language you can just rush through. We need to make sure it is very
clear – there is a distinction between a proper pace and just
rushing which is very important. The Director isn’t keen on cutting
anything – though that is what is normally done with Othello. He is
keen to keep it all in, which is lovely, but perhaps we will need
to cut. We need to keep running it and keep making it slick. Two
hours is a long time when many of the audience are standing. When
we get to the previews (9 days away), it will probably help us
decide. There is so much information, and so much beautiful
language, in the scenes between Iago and Othello that it would be a
shame to cut some of it; but, at the same time, I didn’t see how we
will get the running time down without a few small snips! Of course
nobody wants to see their good bits cut, but I think Iago and
Othello would both be quite happy to lose some of their lines.

After the first run on Saturday we have started back at Act One
Scene One, working at the detail, and then running it. Then moving
on to Act One Scene Two and so on. So much of the first Act is Iago
and Othello that we have had to do some other things to give them a
break, but we are really trying to be fairly chronological so we
are all clear where we are in the play, rather than jumping from
scene to scene. We started the week all in the rehearsal room
pretty much all of the time, but today we have moved on to just
being called when we are needed – so there is a lot of sitting
round in the Green Room.

I am completely sure we will be ready for the first preview, but
we shouldn’t put to much pressure on ourselves. It will be one of
the first times we have run it on the stage, and things will change
– that is what previews are about anyway – for us to evolve and
experience what it is like with an audience. So we will be in the
right place by next Friday [the first preview], but there is quite
a lot to do. We are working until 10 every night next week, long
days through to the evenings. During the day the tours still come
through the theatre while we are working, so the only time we have
the theatre completely to ourselves is in the evening.

The other things we have been doing this week are learning the
jig, which is vaguely hilarious, and the fight stuff has come
together. The boys have had fight calls most morning this week,
because they have their big fight scenes, and I’ve been working
with Othello the final scene. I’m just going to be smothered now,
we had started of thinking about strangling as well. I say just
smothered, but it is a pretty horrible way to die. I think there
are going to be a few bruises. He is dragging me round quite a lot
– and I give as good as I get. It is one thing doing it in
rehearsal when you are doing it fairly slowly, but as soon as some
adrenaline comes in, you don’t even realise if you have hurt
yourself. You go for it, and it is only afterwards you see the
bruises. The fight is ok – I have a signal to give him, just in
case he really is smothering me. I think it will look good, and the
scene preceding the moment when he does it is really electric. We
found while we were blocking it the other day that I’m almost like
prey, stuck in the middle in the bed, and he is circling me. So
even if I wanted to escape it would be difficult for me to do so.
That was really powerful and felt really intimidating and scary. So
I’m pleased with how that scene is going – it will be really
dramatic.

We started thinking about the strangling before the fight
director arrived because even the way we are speaking will change
because of what we are doing physically. So we had marked through a
basic choreography of how we wanted to be when we end up. The fight
director then comes along, and the first thing he does is make sure
you are doing it safely – so Othello doesn’t really smother me, but
that it does look real, and that the audience won’t be able to see
any gaps you might leave – like making special provisions for me to
breathe. I haven’t yet worked out how I’m not going to breathe when
I’m dead at the end; that is the one bit we haven’t rehearsed yet.
It is just a combination of working through the scene, making sure
our intentions are right for each line, adding the physical
movements and then slowly doing them until we are used to them,
then making sure we are doing them safely, then adding all the
realistic thrashing around and all the rest, that makes it seem so
brutal. It is not the sort of fight scene that we will have to do
each day before the show. It just has to happen. You can rehearse
it and rehearse it and rehearse it, but the adrenaline will change
it. It mustn’t look rehearsed – it must look on the spur of the
moment, rough and brutal. On the other hand it has got to be safe –
I haven’t got an understudy.

We have this Sunday and Monday off, then we move on to Tuesday
to Sunday weeks for the rest of the run. It is a bit scary to have
Monday off, which means we have just got three days to tech it, but
everybody is exhausted and I think we all need the break.

Costume

The costumes are really taking shape, and they are so beautiful.
What I particularly like about mine is that there is a distinct
difference between what she wears in Venice and what she wears in
Cyprus. The Venice one is very dark and formal – a very heavy brown
velvet – almost Puritan in effect. In Cyprus I have a corn-blue
dress, with very intricate embroidery on the corset, all sorts of
little gold trims and beads. It is really romantic and pretty and
summary. They are gorgeous, but they will be boiling hot. I have a
special little nightdress to wear in the death scene. Having just
rehearsed it I am a bit worried about it riding right up over my
head during the course of the fight – I need to get myself some
bloomers. The costumes are all hand made. I also have these great
big thick platforms, which look a bit Vivienne Westwoodish. They
are not too bad to walk in. The original design they showed me
copied a shoe from the period which had a large platform on the
front but no heel, so you would have had to keep all your weight on
the front of your foot. They only were able to wear them at the
time because they would have had their maids with them, to hold
them up if they started to go backwards. My shoes now have a
platform which goes all the way back to the heel. As I’m quite
short I’m glad of the platforms – with all these tall men
around.

Research

Bearing in mind I was only cast two days before rehearsals
started, I didn’t do a lot of research before the first day. One of
the joys of working at the Globe is that it is all at your
fingertips. There is an amazing research team, and what I could do
was to say to them, these are the specific things I’d like to know
about, like

What sort of education would she have had.

What sort of relationship would a daughter and her father have
– would he have been away a lot and would they have spent much time
together. How much contact would she have had with him as a
child?

What was the process by which I got a suitor or a potential
husband.

The research team then put together little packs with all the
information we asked for. They also came in and gave us some
brilliant talks about what Venice and Cyprus would have been like
at that time, so they have really backed us up brilliantly.

The Jig

I’ve seen plays at the Globe, so I know how they finish with the
jig. It does feel a bit weird. We haven’t actually gone from the
last scene straight into the jig yet, but I think it could feel
very strange, having just gone from the drama of the ending, and
for me being killed, into a jolly dance. It is a really tragic
play, and I think it is a lovely way to bring us all out again. We
show ourselves as performers to the audience. At the end of a
tragedy people may really want it – some lightness at the end of
something which is so dark. We are trying to avoid anything too
silly; we don’t want to detract from the impact of the play in any
way. Because at the end of the play Othello, Desdemona and Emilia
are all dead on or around the bed, there is a type of funeral march
that will be played, and the bed is ceremoniously taken of during
this sombre music. Then the Clown will come out – he is the one bit
of comedy though the whole play – he seems to say enough of all
that, now it is my turn, and he just starts tapping his foot, then
the music joins in, then we all join in. It is not too courtly – it
will be quite fun. The Director describes it as Skaa music. It is
very beat driven. Patsy Rodenberg, who is our voice teacher, has
worked with a number of other Desdemonas, and she says it is a hard
part because there is no redemption in it, which can get to you
playing it night after night. So the jig could help and give me
some release at the end. I can go away at the end of the day,
thinking I’ve put that away until tomorrow.

These comments are the actor's thoughts or ideas about the
part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply
his/her own interpretations and frequently change as the rehearsal
process progresses.

We’ve just done a run through of the first half which is good,
because until today we have been working on individual scenes, so
to have a perspective of the whole first half is really useful.
Also, when you are working on your own scenes, you get very
enclosed in your own world and you think you are the only person
that exists. In fact there is so much more going on in the gap
between your scenes, that it is good for your sense of perspective
to see it all. It has been good this morning, and I think we are
getting there. It took round about two hours – it will get shorter
as we run it more. We are ending the first half just after Iago has
planted the first seeds of doubt in Othello's mind, he's worked
Othello into a bit of a lather, and its ends with them in a firm
friendship but Othello beginning to doubt Desdemona [Act 3 Scene
3]. Then the second half starts with me asking the clown where
Cassio is because I want to fight his suit. We’ve worked on
individual scenes from the second half, but we haven’t done
anything like a run. We’ve done a lot of the textual stuff, but we
haven’t done the fights yet. The fight guy is coming in for the
first time this afternoon. That will be a weight off my mind. It is
one thing to get the emotion and the sense behind the line. It is
another thing to do that with someone trying to strangle you.

I think this week is going to be brilliant in tentatively
setting things in stone. We only have one more week of rehearsals
and then the tech week. At the end of last week it was a little bit
scary because I felt we had only touched on scenes once or twice
whereas now we’ve done much detailed and cementing work. For me as
an actor this is how it usually works. I start confident, then in
the middle become terrified, then towards the end I get my
confidence back, so that by the first night I’m back on track. Now
it is beginning to really take shape and it is lovely to start
getting excited about it.

Most of us are in all day every day because Wilson [the
Director] wants the freedom to chop and change what scenes we work
on if he needs to. So we are always around. This week has been
about fine tuning. Last week was about making sure we had gone
through every single scene, that we had got the blocking, got the
intentions – who you were speaking to and why. Whereas this week is
about saying this IS what I want, this IS where I stand. Cementing
in our own minds, for the audience, exactly what we are doing.

If I’m not in the rehearsal room I often spend some time with
Giles, the text man. He is fantastic. I’ll ask him to go through
some lines with me. He watches rehearsals all the time and he will
mark in his script a couple of places when you haven’t stressed
things exactly in the right place. He is a good sounding board as
well. Being the first professional Shakespeare I’ve done I want to
get it right – not just for me, but there are the students, all
those people who are studying the play, and you have also got a lot
of people who know the play very well coming to see it. And I don’t
want to disappoint anyone who comes to see it. I’m really working
hard and I think I’m getting there – I hope.

We have a lovely couple of moments in the play when it is
supposed to be pitch black, and, except for the midnight
performance, it will be full light. There are all sorts of clever
things – looking past people, missing people as they are trying to
meet them. That has been choreographed very well. You would be
surprised how many comic moments we have been able to find in
Othello. It does get to a point when there aren’t any more, but in
the first bit there are plenty where we can play about a bit.
Obviously you get to the point where all the rest is just tragedy
and anguish.

I didn’t know the play very well before this production. I had
studied scenes from it at drama school, but we were playing all the
characters so I might be doing scenes as Iago or Othello – to
concentrate on the verse and text and to explore that. I’ve seen
it, but I didn’t know it in a hugely detailed way at all.

Act 4 Scene 3 - The 'Willow' Scene

We’ve only done it once so far. It is going to take a lot of
practice because, as you know, I’ve got to completely get out of my
everyday clothes, I’m just in my shift in the end. I have to take
off the dress, the corset, the skirt, the shoes, whilst singing,
and worrying about all the things she is worrying about at the
time. Obviously Emilia is there as well and we have got plenty of
time – and it is quite a slow, melodic melancholic song. But we
have to look like this is the most natural thing in the world. I’m
keen to keep practicing that scene, even outside rehearsals, just
to get it down pat. I sing the song everywhere, I can’t stop
singing it, I wake up singing it. It is driving me slightly
insane.

It is a pivotal moment in that it gives her a chance to reflect.
She talks about something in her past; her mother singing this
lullaby, and the maid her mother had. She has got so many thought
that are going through her head – why is Othello behaving in the
way that he is? Can she do anything about it? Has she done anything
at all that has provoked this in him? This is her one chance to
collect those thoughts together and to try to think of a way to
reach out to him. I think it is also a sad moment in that she is
realising she could have had a very different life, (this isn’t in
the text, but we have discussed this) perhaps, she is thinking she
could have missed all the anguish, all the defiance of her father.
She is reflecting on all of those things, and they are all going
through her head; it is a sad moment for her.

There is a lovely musician who is going to be playing with me.
Stephen's music is gorgeous. I haven’t practised with them yet, but
it's going to be good. Singing makes me a little bit nervous, but I
think this is more of a reflective song – she is singing to
herself, to soothe herself, so its not as if I’m singing it as a
performance to the audience, so that eases my nerves about the
singing. I’d be a lot more nervous if I had to sing out in the
operatic style.

Changing Ideas

My ideas about Desdemona have changed a bit. When I started I
was determined to make her strong – feisty in a way. I still want
to show her strength. When you are faced with something like the
confrontation with your father, you really explore that. But some
of that defiance does diminish a bit because the full emotional
impact of everything that has happened must have an effect on you.
I think, although she is strong, she has a lot of sympathy and she
has become a lot more thoughtful towards the end. It is not just
standing up for her rights – her main aim is to reach out to him –
which is slightly different from standing up for yourself; it is a
slightly different journey. So it has changed in subtle ways. I
still don’t want to make her, in any way, a weak little wallflower,
because then she couldn’t defy her father and marry somebody who
everybody disapproves of.

I think she is probably in her early 20s or maybe a bit younger.
She is of marriageable age. Women did marry young, and she has
refused a lot of suitors her father has put forward for her.
Othello is in his 40s, so there is a real age gap – but there would
have been – women did marry older men at the time. If there is one
thing that hasn’t gone against their marriage it is the age thing,
but unfortunately everything else seems to have done.

I don’t think she regrets choosing Othello. There is an
interesting moment in the willow scene when they start talking
about Lodovico – Emilia is undoing her corset and almost out of
nowhere Desdemona says `Lodovico is a proper man`. We have debated
whether this should be Emilia's line, trying to change the subject
and lighten the atmosphere. But because Desdemona is in a
reflective mood it feels right for her – in real life you do have
passing thoughts that just pop into your head. She might be
thinking that if she had married somebody like Lodovico, this life
would not have unfolded for me. She is not full of regrets. She
carries on the conversation by saying to Emilia do you think there
are women who do abuse their husbands – and that I wouldn’t do that
for the world. Plus she adores Othello. She can’t imagine herself
with anyone else. They are soul mates and I think she is very
reluctant to let that go.

Emilia and Desdemona

I think Emilia is probably faithful to Iago (though you might
have to ask Lorraine what she thinks). But I don’t think he is
faithful to her, and this has made her quite cynical. She says to
Desdemona, this is what marriage is, don’t think you are the first
person this has ever happened to. It is quite poignant for Emilia
as well, because a lot of the things she is saying to Desdemona
reflect on her own experiences. She has married a bad one.

The Globe Stage

Today I came in a bit early and went out on to the stage. I
didn’t realise the tours start at about 9.30 in the morning. I
thought I’ll get in a nice half hour of quiet time on the stage and
sing my willow song, but after about 15 minutes the tour groups
started coming in, and people were taking photos of me, so I
decided to run away.

In the mornings I usually read my script on the tube. People
must give me odd glances as I sit there mouthing things. I’m not
terribly good in the morning so the train journey helps me get my
head focused. If I know I’m starting the day with a lot of lines
and try to go away and do a short vocal warm up, or if I’m not
needed in the first scene I’ll away and do some stretches and some
vocal warm ups – but I don’t have a set routine.

I am still a little bit scared. I’ve said that for the last two
weeks. I’m usually scared at this point in a production. It is
because I’m a little bit of a control freak and I need to know
exactly what I’m doing, and at this stage of the game we haven’t
got everything completely sorted – which is a natural state to be
in. I’m now feeling that the excitement is building and, I hope, by
the end of next week , that I’ll be at the stage where I say I
can’t wait to do it. I also can’t wait to start working on the
stage. We’ve been working in the room the whole time – it will
change everything. We have one afternoon on the sage before the
Tech week. Even in Tech week we have the tours coming through the
theatre all the time we are working on the stage. It will be
interested to see what that is like – it might be quite nice – to
get a little taste of the audience.

These comments are the actor's thoughts or ideas about the
part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply
his/her own interpretations and frequently change as the rehearsal
process progresses.

We’ve finally got on our feet. We spent a long time round the
table working on the text, which serves several purposes, you find
out so much about the play and when I am at home learning the lines
- because we have read it so many times - it is in your head
already.

The work done sitting around the table is essential, because
instead of wandering around with your script, going, ‘oh what does
she really mean here?’ you’ve already discussed every single
intention. You know who you are speaking to and why you are
speaking to them, and in a sense that then dictates how you move
and where you go. So although at times you may feel that you need
to get on your feet or that you’ve had enough of reading, there are
benefits to the table work.

Desdemona and Othello

In the early days of Desdemona's and Othello's marriage they are
very much in love. In Act 3 Scene 3 Desdemona runs rings around
Othello to persuade him to recall Cassio. She tries to wrap him
round her little finger. There's a big long speech in which she's
changing her direction all the time. She tries to persuade Othello
using any way she can. The scene is quite fast and funny. Desdemona
is thinking on her feet and if one tactic doesn’t work she moves on
to the next one. So she's flirting with him a bit, chiding him a
bit and then laughing at him or cajoling him, but she is always
changing her intention, to try and get him to do what she wants him
to do. This scene is just before the scene where Iago first plants
the seeds of doubt about Desdemona in Othello's mind - so it's
quite nice that you see this lovely romantic banter between
Desdemona and Othello, and having got what she wants she leaves
Othello, and Iago comes up and suddenly the tone changes.

I believe that Desdemona and Othello are kindred spirits and
they’ve found each other. They are soul mates. She fell in love
with his passion and his drive and he is a great warrior of the
battlefield, I don’t think he would fall in love with a ‘little
girl’. Desdemona admires Othello's strength and he admires her
strength. I think that's a lovely quality that she has, but then of
course, it is because she's so forthright that Othello starts to
doubt her. He thinks, ‘hang on a minute why is she so obsessed with
this Cassio business?’ so it is her downfall as well.

I think you have to build it up - you have to believe in the
relationship. The audience need to feel that she has made the right
choice by leaving her old life behind and defying her father. You
need to believe that her and Othello are made for each other and
hope their relationship will last. When all this jealousy starts
eating away at Othello, you can see that ‘oh no’ - this one true
thing that everyone believed in, this love, is now slowly
disintegrating.

Desdemona in Venice and Cypress

There's a very distinct change from the Desdemona we see in
Venice and the one we see in Cypress. For a start she has to learn
everything when she arrives in Cypress. Not only is it a completely
different world and full of soldiers, but she's discovering how to
be a wife - the general's wife as well - so people are reacting to
her as a figure head. She's had to grow up. In Venice she was
always daddy's girl - told what to do, how she should act, where
she should be, keep your mouth shut, this is who you are going to
marry etc and she's now veered off that path and suddenly, almost
over night, she finds herself filling different roles and
positions.

We have looked at the scene where she arrives in Cypress (Act 2
Scene 1) and all the soldiers and the ship's oars men they all get
down on their knees and bow to her and I think, certainly when I
was playing it in rehearsal, it is quite overwhelming for her,
suddenly she's going ‘oh my god they are looking at me to tell them
what to do.’

Cypress is a bewildering world for her, but at the same time,
especially the first half of their time in Cypress, she's absorbed
in this love for Othello. She's very comfortable about declaring
her love for him in front of everyone. She doesn’t seemed to have
quashed that in anyway because of her surroundings. I think she is
just in the throes of love and willing to declare it to the world
where as he's a bit more embarrassed by it.

Desdemona's relationship with Emilia

Iago and Emila's relationship, is the absolute antithesis of
Othello and Desdemona’s. I think Emilia is quite a sad character in
a way. She is feisty because she's had to put up with quite a lot.
She has Iago as a husband and in our production it is not a happy
marriage.

Lorraine, who is playing Emilia, and I are really trying to
forge a really true friendship between Desdemona and Emila even
though they find themselves in different situations. Desdemona
spends a lot of the time being quite wide eyed and innocent about
life and about men because she has only had a good experience so
far. Emilia has been slightly jaded, so she often takes on the role
of advisor and says ‘hang on a minute, just wait before you rush
into this, you don’t know that much about men.’ It's kind of a ‘big
sister’ relationship. We are certainly going to encourage that kind
of closeness. We don’t want it to be a servant and mistress
relationship. I think that they only met each other coming across
from Venice. So they’ve had this journey together on the ship and
it would have been just them for a lot of the time. There would
have been no airs and graces on Desdemona's part, I don’t think
Desdemona is the sort of person who would project her status onto
someone else. We are also lead to believe, at the beginning of the
play, that Iago and Othello are the greatest of friends therefore
Desdemona would be encouraged to treat Emilia as a friend and I
think that's important. At the end when Emilia ‘outs’ Iago she is
crying on Desdemona's behalf. It is really poignant if you’ve seen
that lovely relationship that they have together because you
understand how much they loved each other.

Corsets

I’m wearing a corset in the rehearsal room so I can get used to
wearing one in the run. You don’t realise how much you are used to
your own body and used to slouching a bit or leaning on one hip you
are. That's not what you would do it you are playing a lady and the
use of the corset then gives you that lovely up right poise which
perhaps I don’t have in real life.

These comments are the actor's thoughts or ideas about the
part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply
his/her own interpretations and frequently change as the rehearsal
process progresses.

I suppose I should start with drama school. I went to the
Central School of Speech and Drama and left in 2003. We spent a lot
of time doing Shakespeare there. For a couple of terms we focussed
on comedies and then we focussed on tragedies. There were a few
opportunities to share parts so, for example, I played Rosalind
with another girl and then in our final term before we went into
our third year, all the girls did a project on Richard II and all
the boys did Macbeth and so we got to play all the nice male parts
which are always a bit weightier and bigger! When I left central I
was very lucky and got a lovely film job directed by Richard Eyre
called Stage Beauty where I played Nell Gwynne. It was lovely and a
dream jobs – I was on cloud nine the whole time I was doing it!
That led me down a television and film path and so the doors of the
theatre world were firmly closing which was a bit worrying. At
drama school you pretty much do all theatre. You spend two or three
weeks on television work and the rest of it was about building
character sand putting on plays. I finally got my first theatre job
in 2005 which was a play called Epitaph for George Dillon by John
Osborne and Anthony Creighton which was great because it got me
back on the theatre track. This production of Othello is the first
Shakespeare play that I’ll be doing professionally so it's very
exciting and a big challenge.

Auditioning

I had three meetings in all. At the first one I read with Wilson
Milan the director and Dominic Dromgoole the artistic director of
the Globe. They called me back on the following Friday night to
work on the stage. I had to perform on the stage which was a little
bit daunting and I thought that was going to be it. I think they
had a little bit of trouble working out who they wanted to play it
and got it down to two people and then Wilson decided that he
needed to see us all again. I then came in for about three hours on
the next Thursday. I found out that I had got the job that Thursday
and it started the next Monday! It was lovely to get it finally,
and there was a mad rush over the weekend.

First impressions of Desdemona

I read the play at drama school and we’d studied scenes in
classes. It wasn’t a play I had been in before as a whole play. I’d
seen it on stage and I knew the story and I knew the play. I love
the part of Desdemona because she is one of the few younger parts
who I think shows real strength. She has a real weight behind
her.When we first see her she is doing an incredibly defiant thing.
She stands up to her father which at that time would have been huge
– not only to be marrying a black man and going against her
father's wishes – but to declare her love for Othello in front of
her entire family.

What I love about the early part of her relationship with
Othello is that she very much fell in love with him through
listening to his tales about his adventures through the world and
the dangers that he found and the battles that he fought. She
responded to that and I think there's a passion that she has which
is akin to his passion. I think they have found a kindred spirit in
each other. I think that's why their love has to be so ferocious at
the beginning for the audience to believe how much he is betrayed
at the end. I felt that she's actually a very moral person and it
would have taken such a lot for her to have defied her father and
the only way she would have defied him is because she absolutely
fell in love with Othello and she had to be with him. I think if
you start from that you’ve already got a character who is not only
ruled by her passions and emotions but also by her morals. She's
very fervent in her defence and standing up for what she believes
in. She's very resolute in her defence of Cassio, she fights for
him. When she knows and believes something in her mind she
absolutely stands her ground and I think that's a lovely quality.
It makes her very direct.

As you keep exploring the language you find a lot of her words
are to do with her senses. She talks about her eyes, her ears and
her voice – it all comes from her soul and her being – she's a very
sensual, sensitive person. I very much want to veer away from
making her too angelic and ‘airy fairy’ because I think she's
absolutely direct. She knows she hasn’t betrayed Othello and she
knows who she loves. I think, at the moment, that's very much how
I’m wanting to play her.

Acting at Shakespeare's Globe

We haven’t had a proper text session on the stage yet. We have
had a movement session. I have to say its terrifying! I keep
getting these lurches in my stomach every time I think of the first
night and walking out seeing lots of people. Its one thing playing
to an empty auditorium but quite another playing in front of all
those people. I’m trying to block those thoughts! But hopefully by
the end of the rehearsal process I’ll be much more comfortable!

The First Week of Rehearsals

The crux of it has been to read through the play and keep
rereading it to absolutely iron out any little problems we have -
any worries about character and any worries about the shear
mechanics of how the play works. So we’ve been reading it a lot and
by doing that we have been finding out new things every time. We’ve
also had a couple of voice sessions with Patsy Rodenberg who's just
fantastic and absolutely brings it alive. She makes you aware of
the danger of the text because speaking Shakespeare is not like
speaking a play that would be written today. Patsy believes that
you speak every single line to survive. You’re speaking as if
you’re just about to change the world. There is so much weight and
gravitas to everything you say therefore your voice is so important
on relaying that.

We’ve also had brilliant help with research from Dr Farah
Karim-Cooper. We can literally say ‘what was Desdemona's education
like? And suddenly I’ve got an answer which is fantastic. So this
first week has been about finding out as much as we can about the
characters, the place where we are – Venice and Cyprus - and really
sort of setting the scene. When we’re on stage we won’t have
complicated backdrops. We have to believe where we are and what
we’re doing to make the audience then believe it. Its been a good
week so far.

Costume

The design of the production is set in the renaissance. I’ve
seen a couple of pictures which I think they’re going to base my
costume on. I think I’ll have two main costumes. The first one is
for when I start off in Venice. It will be quite formal and strict
– showing her full background and that patrician family that's she
from. When I go to Cyprus it becomes very romantic with lighter
colours and it might become a little more bohemian. The costumes
will defiantly reflect the two different places and what they
represent.

These comments are the actor's thoughts or ideas about the
part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply
his/her own interpretations and frequently change as the rehearsal
process progresses.